I wrote a summary of the fight that I'm involved in on behalf of the Winchester Tenants who live in the Winchester Building in West Philly. We are fighting the Quaker non-profit Friends Rehabilitation Program which has failed to do proper building maintenance since 2011.

I updated Justice Map to use the American Community Survey income data from 2013. So it now uses the five year summary/average of 2009-2013 for the API, when you click on the map, and for the map tile layers. The one exception is Puerto Rico which still uses the old data from 2007-2011.

I think that someone should create a black market (or maybe grey if located in the right country) for coyotes and other people providing illegal assistance to US immigrants. I think such a market could save dozens of lives annually and make the owner a lot of money (assuming they avoid arrest).

Two years ago Philadelphia passed the Actual Value Initiative (AVI) in an attempt to properly revalue the properties for taxation. I wrote about this earlier. Ever since, there have been two different stories. One side argues that the AVI was accurate and increased fairness, whereas the other side argues the opposite.

Previously my best guess as to the problem was that the two different sides used different data (different versions of the Office of Property Assessment data set).

I'm working with the Philly Socialists Solidarity Network in West Philadelphia and a group of tenants of the Winchester apartment building to put pressure on the landlord to follow the law, uphold Quaker values, and to treat the tenants as equal human beings who deserve quality affordable housing.

Please sign the petition. Please forward it to any Quakers whom you might know.

This is kind of silly, but the goal of the post is to provide a solution to a problem with the Brother 3040 color laser printer. Hopefully this shows up in the search engine results and avoids people throwing out the printer.

The Brother 3040 CN printer is a decent cheap color laser printer, but there are newer models that are probably more reliable. It's Amazon rating is only 3.5 stars which is a good sign of problems.

We have two projects. One is a free GED tutoring program that we're running at a local library on 52nd. The goal is to demonstrate our support for quality public education and to provide a direct remedy to shortcomings in the underfunded public school system (while we also take other actions - like joining a recent protest of the School Reform Commission's decision to cancel the teacher's contract).

Currently we're on our second fight. We're fighting for a tenant who wants adequate heat, proper maintenance (hole in their ceiling fixed), pest control (flies and bed bugs), and respect for their trans gender identity.

I made a map of Philadelphia housing prices using the 2014 property assessment data. I use value per square foot as the best indicator of housing quality and demand. If you use total property value - you get large differences that are due to property size. For instance, single family properties vary from 600 sq feet to 3000+.

An estimated 30% of Philadelphia residents have not applied for the homestead exemption which exempts the first $30,000 of a homeowner's property value from taxation. This can save you $402/year if you get the full exemption. The city created this program to take some of the bite out of the property re-assessment (Actual Value Initiative) which increased residential taxes and decreased taxes for the large commercial properties.